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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by TWTCommish:I'm out in Pittsburgh and I was watching TV recently and a commercial came on the screen for web development and e-commerce...

I've got to agree that site that everyone's ragging on is pretty crappy. What makes it so bad is not the poor design, it's the content. I have no problem with the amateur sites on geocities, angelfire and the like. Everyone has to start somewhere, and a lot of people are simply making sites for themselves and their friends to enjoy.

In those cases, design really doesn't matter. If they can enjoy the site with their friends, then I say the design is good because it suits their purpose. However, the one talking about web design, but has a poor one of its own is something we can rag on. If someone is that dillusional to think their design is all that then they deserve harsh criticism.

So really, what makes for a poor web design? Surely you can't say appearance is 100% of it, because a lot of people are perfectly happy going to those amateur sites, but might not be so satisfied with a 'cutting edge' site about the mysteries of why Dirt is Dirty.

Now I'm wondering if that makes sense, but I don't feel like ranting much longer. In my opinion, a badly designed site is anything that doesn't supply the target surfers with the means to be able to enjoy the site to its fullest.

(ok, i was never good with endings.. oh well. Im impressed if you got this far )

Update: Emailed the 2WebSpinners.com guy, and he told me I was entitled to my opinions, that he doesn't like to load sites up with a lot of graphics or multimedia, and he listed several client sites.

Here's the weird part: the client sites were pretty good...so this guy is not an amateur...his skills are up to task, but the site marketing his skills is not.

I replied telling him that I'm not referring to multimedia and graphics, simple to cheezy marquee scrolling text, about 5 buttons on the mainpage, grainy graphics, bright links on a black background that change SIZE when you move your mouse over them, and other such things...no reply yet.

FYI: he told me I have no room to brag (which I wasn't...I was only pointing out his terrible site) and talked about how they use customized FP Themes to modify layouts sitewide instantly...I came back saying that SSI and PHP/SQL made more sense...he hasn't replied in nearly 2 days now; he's got nothing left to say.

Simple: newbies...but not just that; his client sites don't look too bad...he's shown me a few that look just fine...I just can't figure out (and he has no answer for why) his sites (2WebSpinners and CCToys) look so *AMAZINGLY* terrible!

here's another to look at... http://www.greeleycvb.com/ . stare at the menu for any length of time and seizures become a distinct possibilty. unfortunately, if you follow the link to the designers, (vanguard), you can see that this site was the best that greeley could have hoped for.

honeyb,
Never make an assumption without cold, hard facts. True, at the moment, the city of Greeley can only hope for what Vanguard has to offer, but that is about to change.

Greeley is on the verge of having a new, prominent name to think about for web solutions - my name. As I mentioned in another post in the forums, I am targeting the businesses in my local community of Greeley.

My main reasoning behind this is because, to put it quite bluntly, the other "professional" designers don't know a thing about designing a professional web site. Basically, that is money in my pocket, but it won't come without work on my part.

Who knows, you may see a change on the GCVB site within the next year...

Yikes!!! NameZero, a free account at Prohosting and the big surprise: A site that almost killed me (couldn't stop laughing): links who doesn't fit on the place they should be placed one 'cause this site just DOESN'T work on 1024x768, brown, orange and green as color scheme, a worthless layout and no real, useful graphic in sight...

Firstly, I'm not trying to say who is right and who is wrong, but could it be a matter of taste? Perhaps all of you here have similar taste of web design. I, too, think that these sites you mentioned are scary. But there are also people that think they are fine.

Few weeks ago one of my friend showed me his new website, and I think the color combination are all wrong. I don't even want to design a page using that colors in any combination. Then I told him that the color "didn't fit" (I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth). But he said he liked the colors and to him they're perfectly fine. I know some of his friends also agree with him. So there's nothing I could do to 'save' him.

But then I realised that I've come across many sites that have ugly colors, crowded navigation links, animated gifs everywhere, and nearly gave me heart attack with loud MIDI files, yet they get ten times pageview than my site. This means there are still lot of people that accept this kind of sites.

And as for freedom2surf (posted by Elledan), AFAIK they are UK's ISP that also provide free webhosting. They don't put site design as their first priority. Actually I put my site there and I'm really happy with their service. No ads, PHP, Perl, SQL, site stats, web-based email. Almost everything that I need. I don't mind having plain interface (now they have logo, previously didn't) as long as the control panel load fast and everything works.

So what I do now is if I really like the content, then I can forgive the design (just have to remember to turn the sound off :-)). If I don't, just do go there again. I know that my site is also less than perfect, but as long as I'm happy with it and I can give something useful to others with its content, then it's enough for me.